


When You Wish Upon A Star

by peachchild



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Disney AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:19:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachchild/pseuds/peachchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean is the Blue Fairy and Aidan is Jiminy Cricket and I take a lot of liberties with Disney 'Verse and refuse to explain any of them.</p><p>  <i>"I'll bet a lot of you folks don't believe that, about a wish comin' true, do ya? Well, I didn't, either. Of course, I'm just a cricket singing my way from hearth to hearth, but let me tell you what made me change my mind."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Wish Upon A Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monkeydra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkeydra/gifts).



> [Always a good song to listen to when reading about Pinocchio characters.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGP-1eMgzUE)
> 
> Apparently treating Disney movies like they're my own personal store of plots is a thing I'm going to be doing? But! In my defense, this was requested as a Christmas present by Kendra! 
> 
> Quote in the summary from Walt Disney's _Pinocchio_. 
> 
> As always, con crit is welcome!

“I have no idea how you pulled that off.” Dean shook his head, leaning back on his hands. His eyes were closed, as they often were when he was on earth at night, his head tilted slightly to the right. _Listening the the stars_ , he explained once. They whispered to each other, and sometimes, if Dean felt inclined, he’d relay the stellar gossip to Aidan.

Aidan curled his arms around his knees, let the cool breeze wash over his face. “Honestly, I’m not sure either. I was losing more than a bit of my patience. If the boy’s nose had gotten any longer, I would have been able to use him as an ore.” 

“Would’ve come in handy when you two were drowning.”

“Well, getting eaten by a whale saved us from that awful fate, luckily.” He tipped over to rest his cheek against Dean’s shoulder, letting his eyes close. Dean radiated warmth most of the time, some of the starlight burning off him. “What’s my next assignment?” 

“I might take you with me back to Agrabah, if you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for it.” Aidan smiled. “But I thought you were taking care of the wishes for that. What do you need me for?”

“Just to make sure Aladdin makes the right wishes.” Dean dropped a kiss on his hair. “No physical form this time, just inner Conscience.”

Aidan groaned. “It always makes me squirm to be inside someone’s head. I mean, even being a cricket was more comfortable.”

“I can always take Adam instead, and you can go with Evangeline to see Cinderella.”

“She’s not going to need my help with that. Cinderella’s lovely.” 

“Then what do you say?” Dean closed his fingers around Aidan’s, turned to drop a kiss on his nose. He mostly missed, and his lips half-landed on his eyelid. Aidan found it more endearing than he was probably willing to admit. “Put up with it for a few days. I promise, he’s a great kid. Just needs to work on the selfishness.”

“He’s in love with a princess, right?”

“Aren’t they always?”

“Well, at least he’ll have that to keep his mind occupied.”

* * * 

For Aidan, Dean was the brightest star in the sky. Dean often blushed and demurred when Aidan said this, but it was true. In fact, Aidan considered Dean to be the _only_ star in the sky. 

He had never been much for wishing, had always believed in making his own luck, achieving his own dreams, but when he looked up, and he saw Dean, and he made his wish, his only wish, there was Dean. Of course, there were many wishing stars in the sky. But Dean was Aidan’s, and he wanted it to stay that way.

Agrabah was hot, and they lingered there for a while after Aladdin and Jasmine were happily married. Aidan was fond of the desert sun, the way it warmed his skin, and the way it beaded sweat along Dean’s spine, set the hair at the base of his neck curling. They kept a cool dark room in the palace, lit only by the sun slanting through red curtains across their bed. 

“I’ll have to go soon,” Dean murmured, his eyes closed, cheek smashed against the pillow, as Aidan bit kisses across his back, over the wings of his shoulder blades, his hands sliding across the back of his thighs, thumbs dipping into the space between them. He smiled when the touches had him spreading his legs further. “It’s only just night in America. Stars will be out.” 

“They could be one star short, for a few hours.” Aidan bent to kiss the dip of his lower back. 

They didn’t get much time like this, the two of them, before the itch of young hearts wishing had Dean stretching for the sky, where Aidan couldn’t follow. So Aidan made the most of it, whenever they got it, and spent the time with his lips and hands on Dean’s skin. 

Dean wiggled and wormed his way onto his back, his face flushed. His fingers smoothed over Aidan’s ribs, his palms settling against his sides to pull him down so he could kiss him. They lay like that for a long while, mouths and hips lazy, until Dean groaned and pushed Aidan away with a hand splayed against his chest. “I have to go. I can hear them.” When Aidan’s face closed up, turned dark, he cupped his cheeks between his hands, drew him in to kiss him again, until his shoulders relaxed and he dropped in to nuzzle against Dean’s neck. Dean ran his fingers through his hair, pressed his lips to his forehead. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he murmured, connecting the freckles on his shoulder with the tip of his pinky finger. “And you can always call, if you need me. You’re still allowed to make wishes.”

“You get angry when I make wishes.”

“Not angry,” he huffed. “Anyway, it’s the wishes you make subconsciously. I can still hear them, even if you don’t say them out loud.” 

“Sorry. I’ll try not to want you so badly.”

“Don’t be that way; that’s not what I meant.”

Aidan rolled over onto his back, glared at the ceiling, his jaw tense. “You’d better go.” 

Dean hesitated, then pressed his forehead to his temple for a moment and was gone. 

* * * 

When Dean was a firefly, he was fond of granting wishes.

Since fireflies glowed with the light of the stars, they did have the ability to grant small ones: that five-pound note you might find on the ground that will be just enough to get you home from work on the Tube, a phone call from your mother right when you need it - nothing life-changing, but certainly day-changing.

He liked Tiana especially. She was strong-willed and determined - and so very beautiful. When he landed on her windowsill in the evening, pulsing with his soft orange glow, she smiled at him, like she knew that he was the same firefly, night after night, come to watch her cook gumbo and hum herself to sleep, ready to get up the next morning to tie on her apron and head back to work.

He couldn’t make Tiana’s dreams come true; he didn’t have enough power. But he did what he could. He convinced Charlotte to invite her to the party, where she met her prince. He did his best to keep her safe and out of the reach of her enemies.

But wishes take a lot of stardust, and fireflies eventually burn out. Not all of them become stars when they die, but Dean did. 

In the end, he wasn’t the one to make Tiana’s wishes came true; that was a special gift from another star, but Dean didn’t mind. There were so many wishes surging up toward him, drawn by his bright blue glow, and he wanted as many of them to come true as possible.

* * * 

Aidan’s anger didn’t last long, which was nice because it sometimes flared up and engulfed him, held him in a trembling stasis for days, and Dean was tired. Aidan was waiting for him sitting on a beach in Denmark, his bare feet buried in the sand. It was far too cold for swimming, the wind cutting sideways across the water and over them, but Aidan liked the ocean, even with his recent near-death experience.

When reminded of this, he grinned sheepishly and shrugged. “Hey, that whale saved us from drowning.” 

“Okay, you still like the ocean after _almost drowning_.” 

Aidan leaned into him, shoved him lightly with his shoulder. “How were the mermaids?” 

“More difficult than usual. Ariel ended up going to _Ursula_ instead of waiting for her wish to be granted. Ursula, Aidan! Do you know how hard it is to undo dark magic? It is _exhausting_.” He tucked his head under Aidan’s chin, let him curl his arm around him. “But she has her happily ever after. She was married not two hours ago.” 

“Why is it that happily ever afters always involve marriage?”

“Oh, I think this was a means to an end.” Dean chuckled. “She seems to like Eric well enough, but she’s really in love with this world. Marrying Eric means she gets to be a part of it - and you know, marrying a prince offers a certain amount of security, don’t you think?” 

“You’re very perceptive.”

“Well, I have to understand the wishes before I can grant them.”

Aidan hummed. “Did you understand my wish?”

“You know I did. I just wish I’d been able to grant it the way you wanted.”

“Yeah, well. You can’t get them all right, can you?” 

Stung, Dean didn’t answer. Aidan’s capacity for cruelty always caught him off-guard.

Of course, in the next moment, Aidan exhaled a long breath. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t your fault,” he said quietly. “Just because I am a Conscience doesn’t mean I have a good one.”

Dean laughed and kissed his hair. “You’re doing fine.” 

* * * 

Aidan didn’t always believe in magic.

He knew the stars were stars, and some people spoke in whispers about the wishes they sometimes granted, if you asked the right one, in the right words, with the right intentions.

“The stars’ll grant you wishes if you’re always good in your heart,” his mother told him when she tucked him into bed. “As long as you’re not hurting anyone, and as long as you do your best to help others, the stars will grant you any wish you choose.” 

Aidan, for a long time, had no need for wishes. He was a happy child. Until his mum died, when he was 18, he’d never wanted for anything. When, after her death, he wished as hard as he could for her to come back, when none of the stars shone out brighter in response, he pretended his very best that he didn’t feel betrayed by them. And then, when he stopped pretending, he stopped believing. 

Then he met Merida.

She was the first princess he’d ever met (though she wouldn’t be the last) and she was gorgeous, with a head full of flammable curls, giant blue eyes and the biggest grin he’d ever seen. “I’ll teach you to shoot, if you like,” she offered one afternoon in her thick rolling accent, where they often _accidentally_ met in the woods. She brandished her gun at him, holding the barrel, her smile half-quirked on her mouth. “I’m the best shot in Scotland, you know.” She swung her head, tossing her mass of red hair over his shoulder. “The other clans keep sending their sons to shoot for me, to impress me enough that I’ll marry them. It’s a bit sad, really. I can outshoot them all.”

“Then why teach me? I’ll never shoot well enough to impress you.” 

She lowered the gun, her eyebrows drawing low over the eyes. “You’ve already impressed me. You’ve not expected anything from me. You don’t know how far that goes.” 

“I’ve wanted much from you.”

“Ah, but wanting and expecting are very different things.” She flicked his nose with her pointer finger, her own freckled nose wrinkling up with her smile. Her face went serious suddenly, eyes wide with her earnestness. “I need you to know that I might never be able to give you what you want.”

“I know.” Aidan smiled at her, held out his hand for the gun. “Now teach me to shoot. I’ll show up the next time some guy comes looking to impress you, and put him to shame.”

“And after you win my hand?”

“Well, I’ll give it back to you. It’s yours, after all.”

The smile she graced him with shone brighter than all the will-o’-the-wisps in Scotland. 

* * * 

Dean liked to take Aidan for gumbo in New Orleans, and they only went to one restaurant, and they both knew it was just a very flimsy pretext in order for him to see Tiana.

The restaurant thrived, because the food was excellent, and Dean liked to sit quietly amidst its bustle: the servers running about, sliding piping hot food onto tables, refilling drinks; the smells of sharp spices mingling with the rich warmth of coffee or the tang of wine rising between them. If they sat long enough, and they usually did, because Dean was patient, and Aidan was in love with Dean, they saw Tiana herself emerge from the kitchen, pushing back the curls that had started to kink around her face from the heat, her smile sharp on a face shining with perspiration and joy. 

Aidan nodded in her direction, the first time he went, taking a moment before speaking to enjoy the hot chili he’d just spooned into his mouth. After he’d swallowed, he asked, “Why does she cook? I thought she owned the place.”

“She owns the restaurant so she _can_ cook the food,” Dean explained quietly, his eyes tracking her as she swept around the dining room, stopping at this or that table to ask how her guests were enjoying their meals, smiling and laughing with them. “That’s where she finds her happiness: the cooking, the feeding of people.”

Aidan hummed acknowledgment, watching as she paused at the bar, where her husband was stationed, helping the bartender make cocktails (between drinking them himself), to touch his arm and smooth a kiss against his cheek. Then she disappeared again through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “Why don’t you go say hello to her?”

“She wouldn’t know me.” Dean smiled sadly. “I was just a firefly when we knew one another. She would only have known me as the bug she shooed out of her way.” 

“That can’t be true.”

“If she ever recognized me, she never acknowledged it. And that was okay. I was happy to do for her, even if she didn’t know I was doing it.” 

Aidan leaned his cheek against his knuckles, quirking the side of his mouth up. “You’re absolutely _smitten_ with her!”

“Shut up.”

“You are! Completely besotted.” 

Dean kicked him under the table, hard enough that their silverware shook. “I’m besotted with _you_ , you idiot.” 

“Ah, but I’m only your second love.” He sighed dramatically.

“And my last.” Dean’s eyes were dark, serious. He took a long sip of his wine. “That’s the important part.”

Aidan averted his gaze, spooned his chili around his bowl, appetite lost. “Says the very long-lived star to the mortal man.”

Dean wasn’t sure how to answer that, so they both pretended nothing needed to be said.

* * * 

Aidan had a lot of reasons he’d didn’t like to be in someone’s subconscious. 

It was, first of all, an extraordinarily intimate place, and it left him feeling nauseous and naked, like he was the one having his mind. And most people, of course, have their own Consciences, so for stronger-willed people, he had to fight for space, and demand that his voice be heard. 

It was exhausting. 

Worse though was finding out that being in someone’s head made you susceptible to all their ailments; Aidan came out of too many assignments with a sprained ankle or frostbite or a crick in his back. And beyond that, if anything more serious were to happen to someone, that also affected Aidan. He found it to be a rather inconvenient quality of Consciences. 

The Beast wasn’t his favorite person to act as Conscience for, because his own Conscience was buried so deep. Sometimes, that made it easier, not having to compete for space, but today it meant that the Beast didn’t trust any of the information Aidan was relaying, any of the hints and thoughts he positioned just so into his mind so that he might make better decisions than he _had_ been making. And of course, the work paid off eventually - partially because Belle was not an unkind person and was indeed rather patient. He made a note to himself that perhaps they should extend an offer for her to become a Conscience herself. 

In the end, Gaston did them in. The magic of true love might be able to save a person, but only if that person has a physical body, as it turns out. Besides, Belle wasn’t Aidan’s true love. He was doomed from the very start. 

Dying, it turned out, was a rather warm experience. Aidan felt like he was sinking into a hot bath, starting from his toes and rising up over his head, and then it was quiet, and it was dark, and then there was Dean, who was smiling at him, sadness carving the lines at the edges of his mouth deep. His firelight was a soft blue glow around him. 

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Aidan murmured, because he felt sleepy and quiet, and not quite able to do much more than that. 

“You are.” Dean came close, cupped his face in his hands, and Aidan was surprised that he could feel it. “But luckily, you make a very lovely star.” 

* * * 

Aidan and Merida, on some level, must have known that their good fortune wouldn’t always hold up. 

“She’s _demanding_ that I be married, can you believe that?” Merida paced back and forth, tromping down a path in the grass beneath her boots. Her accent was thick almost to the point of incomprehension in her anger. “Demanding it! As if that’s her choice to make! Says I have to choose one of the princes from the other clans at the feast next week, so we can begin the courtship immediately.”

Aidan was silent, scratching nonsense doodles into the ground. 

“If only there was some way to…” She stopped abruptly, her hair swaying. She spun on Aidan, her eyes bright. “What if _we_ were married? That’d save me from those awful bores. And Mum would still be happy! You might not be her first choice, but anyone is more respectable than no one!”

“That wouldn’t make _you_ happy, Merida.” Aidan smiled sadly at her. When her shoulders sagged, he hopped to his feet. “I have an idea, though. We could use magic.”

“Magic?”

He grasped her shoulders. “Will-o’-the-wisps. They’re made of starlight - from that big blue star in the north. They grant wishes.”

“It always costs _something_ to ask for a wish like that.” She broke away from him. “You know that.”

“I’ll make the wish.” Aidan grabbed her hand, squeezed her fingers gently. “I’ll take the cost. I love you, Merida. And I want you to be happy.” He kissed her hair, and she smiled at him. “You’re going to be a _queen_ , and you’re going to do it as you like. And I’m going to help.”

Finding the will-o’-the-wisps was a more difficult task than they anticipated, but they managed it. And of course, the wish didn’t go exactly as planned, because they never do. But Merida was clever, and full of love for her mother, regardless of their differences, and they both got her happily ever after. 

And Aidan paid the price, though, if he was honest, the price wasn’t a hard one to pay.

Because sitting out in the woods, more heartbroken than he might have liked to admit, a soft blue glow overtook him, and he shielded his eyes. Here, in person, was a star - his star, the only one he had ever wished upon. 

“Hello, Aidan.” The Blue Fairy smiled at him. “I’m Dean. What would you say, if I asked you to help me grant some wishes?”


End file.
